"Political Blogging Is Over"

From the Wash Times, about a panel on blogging at the Brookings Institution today:

"The fact that Brookings is doing such a symposium automatically confirms the fact that political blogging is over. If something turns up in the dusty halls of a think tank, then it's already passe," [Slate's Jack] Shafer observed yesterday.

Whole thing here. Shafer, a fan of H.L. Mencken and pool-pisser, is one of the participants himself.

Comments

[Brian]

I figured it was over when CNN and MSNBC started devoting airtime to blogs, which mainly consists of shots of computer screens showing the blogs in question - that's compelling television!

[dead_elvis]

I'm starting to see in the local paper more and more internet items. The other day there was a side box of info next to an AP story (I forget exactly the topic), and more than half of the citations were from wikipedia!

I forsee a future in which the printed paper, or the nightly newscast, is simply a web highlight list.

[PapayaSF]

Ugh, I hate this use of the word "over," by which they mean "now popular." Shafer sounds like a bubbleheaded trend-follower who only cares about what's new among the hip, not what's useful or what's popular among the unhip masses.

It's particularly annoying coming from someone at Slate, which is not exactly cutting-edge in 2005.

[Ken Layne]

That Washington Times piece is almost as pathetic as blogging itself. I especially liked this part:

But panelist and media analyst Jack Shafer -- editor-at-large for Slate, the nation's first real Internet-based publication -- can only shrug.

I imagine the founders of HotWired, Suck, Buzznet, Feed, Salon, etc., might have something to say about that.

[Henry]

Is anybody worth reading NOT a fan of Mencken?

[js]

Ah the reporters at Slate ... making sure their articles are non-baised to the point of brain dead (too much Terri?) idiocy. There are a lot of individual blogs that do 100 times better analysis, of course.